If you are trying to up your marketing game in your small business, it won’t take long before you stumble along the term “content marketing” in your Google search.
What does “content marketing” even mean?
I was going to make a joke here about a camping con man, but I’ll spare you (con…tent…content. Get it? Ha…ahahaha…ha *sigh*)
Let’s dive right in and see what content marketing would look like in a theoretical event company that I just made up.
Step 1.
Produce content for the blog portion of your website. The content must be practical and truly useful to your clients. It could be something your potential clients might even Google. For example: a blog entitled “10 Tips to Make Your Next Company Event a Success” or “How You Can Leverage Social Media to Help Promote Your Next Trade Show” or “The Top 20 local Indoor Event Venues for a Weather-free Event” or even “How to Find The Right DJ for Your Next Event”. Other examples of useful content include short how-to videos, infographics, podcasts – the possibilities are endless.
Step 2.
Once the content is perfected and posted to your site, the task then becomes promoting that content to those who might find it useful. The goal is to get past and present clients reading and sharing, and to get potential clients clicking and calling. That’s where emails and social media come into play. The idea is to use these tools not to directly pitch your services or promotions, but to market the useful, practical content that’s found on your website. Once you get potential clients to your website, that’s where the digital pitch takes place.
Step 3.
Roll around in mountains of money….or….whatever.
To use a fishing metaphor: think of the content (blog, video, podcast, infographic, etc) as the bait. The fishing pole and line are Facebook, email marketing, etc. Your website is the net you use to scoop them into the boat!
This all plays into SEO best practice. If people are coming to your site because you are consistently providing fresh, relevant and practically useful content, Google will notice and you will be rewarded!
Gone are the days of traditional advertising. Today, savvy consumers want to buy from businesses they know and trust like a friend. And what do friends do? Are friends always trying to sell you something (…damn MLMs…) ? Hopefully you have the kind of friends who try to help you out when they can.
And hopefully this post helped you out a little.
But if the above described process sounds time consuming, and it certainly can be, you can always hire your old pals right here at 2oddBalls.
Cheers mate!
PS: Yes, it is 2017 and I’m still making anchorman jokes. If you darn whippersnappers don’t like it, you can get off my lawn!
